Stendhal Development Meeting 2009-11-22/Result Log/Music

TODO: Creation of this page is in progress. This is not a real chat log. Comments have been removed, sorted and edited.

• Meeting
• Result Log
  • Misc
  • Pets
  • Music
  • World Map
  • New Players
• Raw Chat Log

Introduction (needs summary or integrate below)

• humana: hey... I want more sound in this game, maybe music!... I thought about a new house... for example a jazz house... there are some musicians (is that the right word) which are playing music... you can do there for example a new quest too ... how do you think about this?
• humana: maybe first just one place for music ... it's difficult to write songs for all places in stendhal...
• hendrik: And too many other things to work on.
• vomit: there's a text in the wiki about this
• humana: what kind of music?
• humana: I can do maybe something with cheatdomi
• vomit: chilling tunes
• humana: I like it if there is a jazz house!
• storyteller: humana, I already produced a four music tracks for Stendhal :)
• vomit: maybe ambient or classic with a touch of medieval tunes
• humana: it's difficult to write something for all places vomit
• humana: you want for dungeons for example other music
• humana: storyteller? where can I hear this music?
• storyteller: it is added to the patches tracker
• storyteller: it´s something for ambient/atmosphere
• miasma: we could take midi-files.
• superkym: storyteller's music is really good. but adding to the game it is another thing
• storyteller: I produced it myself
• humana: okay teller I will hear it
• humana: kymi? what do you mean?
• superkym: pepsz, you can write this already
• plassy: maybe we can find some music at jamendo.com... it's creative common
• humana: I like some music for your heart
• humana: like blues and jazz

File Format (needs summary)

• vomit: in the wiki stood something about ogg
• vomit: would flac do it either?
• vomit: i have one ambient track but it's in mp3
• miasma: midi-files can be repeated the whole time aren't so big files and you can make them easy at home
• blackfinix: convert it to ogg
• blackfinix: ogg is open source
• blackfinix: flac is open source
• kiheru: with flac we would get rather large download sizes
• miasma: i'm for midi-files.
• vomit: flac would just be the source
• superkym: i'm pretty sure the wiki says what specifications we have, doesn't it say oggs?
• vomit: you could downsample it then for your own desired size
• blackfinix: a midi composition would work miasma. but i am not sure if he game can handle them
• plassy: midi and linux isn't a good idea
• humana: midi...
• blackfinix: if it was midi it would definitely have a retro sound to the game :)
• vomit: i think it should be ogg
• storyteller: do you think about 8-bit music?
• blackfinix: yes ogg is best bet
• storyteller: retro style? ;)
• plassy: full ack to ogg
• miasma: i think a retro touch like lufia or secret of mana or sth. is not bad for a game like these
• storyteller: thats right miasma
• vomit: but midis are tooooo oldschool
• miasma: i could try to make midi-files. thanks to guitar pro :D
• tigertoes: i dont think you can get the range in midi files as you can in ogg

Other (needs summary)

• storyteller: no, I think we should not take music from anywhere...
• humana: storryteller what do you mean?
• plassy: what do you mean with anywhere?
• storyteller: well, to take it from any other source... Because of the copyright etc
• plassy: its a game
• humana: yes and a game has a background music
• humana: you can mute the music
• pepsz: more for example the people how you ignore can see why you ignore hem when try speak with you
• Oslsachem: music usually adds atmosphere to the game but not gameplay
• humana: so I don't know now... what do you think about a Blues or Jazz house?

• vomit: and there should be a soundtrack file, which you are able to download extra
• blackfinix: vomit yes ... like the sound files now
• superkym: adding music would still be rather a major change

• blackfinix: ok we can put that off for now, or create a ccommittee to look into it
• humana: who wrote music for stendhal already?
• superkym: it's not a minor thing which we can just make happen, it's a major thing needed, as far as i remember
• vomit: atmospheric sounds in ogg would be better
• miasma: but not your ambient music, vomit. i think ulthar isn't a good choice. in dreamscape maybe ;)
• Oslsachem: music should be played adaptively according to the place and situation, to give it more value.
• plassy: whats the problem with music... there is support for sound in java... or am I wrong?
• samson: I don't care about music / sounds as long as I can switch them off
• blackfinix: yes samson.
• plassy: so who did the original sound stuff?

Triggering Background Music (needs summary)

• Oslsachem: there's the question whether music should be played individually for each player or whether it should be associated with the zone...
• hendrik: There should be different music for cities, forest, dungeons.
• hendrik: So it would be zone depended.
• hendrik: We already have some wind like sounds in 0_semos_village_w, but that is very basic.
• plassy: music have to add atmosphere
• superkym: yes and storyteller's music are great examples of this
• storyteller: Thanks very much :)
• superkym: some are very pretty and quiet and suitable for outdoors, a meadow
• superkym: some are dark and scary like for a dungeon

• Oslsachem: but that means that when a player enters a zone the music is not played from the beginning
• superkym: also he made them fairly small file which is important as we don't want to force large downloads, and they loop, too.
• yoriy: if music stay zone dependent it must not be monotonic , so probably there must be 2-3 misic themes for each zones
• blackfinix: osl that wouuld be ok though?
• hendrik: There is this problem:
• hendrik: Player One enters the zone.
• hendrik: The music starts.
• hendrik: 30 second later player Two enters the zone.
• storyteller: Then the music has to be played for every single player
• hendrik: Will he hear the music from the start? Or will it start with 30 seconds into the track?
• tigertoes: if it is a loop, wouldnt that mean it doesnt matter?
• vomit: the music should play for each player
• tigertoes: same concept for when you have music on telephone and they put you on hold
• storyteller: yes, tigertoes... for loops it doesnt matter
• love_puppet: or maybe the player 2 picks up 30s in to the track
• vomit: that should be controlled locally by the client
• plassy: the music should fade in... there is no need to hear it from the start
• hendrik: Always starting at the beginning of the file is a lot easier to code.
• plassy: except if special events arise
• yoriy: id like to have music in client instead server
• plassy: hendrik: i dont see the problem... dosn't java handle this?
• plassy: isn't there any library?
• superkym: why is it a problem if the music starts from the beginning as you enter, for each player? i think that is ok
• jesco: yes it is
• hendrik: okay, that makes things easier.
• Oslsachem: there's an unofficial rule that states that all the players should see the same things in the game though I don't know if music is really a part of the world or just the game interface because there isn't actually a musician playing it...
• kiheru: java does not handle everything. there's still a lot about the behaviour to code
• blackfinix: wouldn't all this music be very resource hungry?

• Oslsachem: you could play with the music tempo, increasing it when a player has low health
• humana: so if you want some music for some maps... I am here, I have guitar pro .. and domi have a better programm
• miasma: like the time-out music in super mario, oslsachem? ;)
• kiheru: maybe eventually osl. first we need something that works

• kiheru: just have a "atmosphere" property for the zones that's send to the client
• superkym: if you really wanted to make it start at the correct place you'd send what moment in the track to start from but not stream

Multi Account Playing (needs summary)

• humana: what is if you play with 2 accounts?
• humana: you have to mute one?
• humana: otherwise maybe it sounds really strange
• hendrik: It may be a good idea to only play the music if the client is the active window.
• kiheru: you'd mute the music of one, unless you want a cacophony
• superkym: well they may not even be in the same zone humana... yes i guess you would choose to mute one or hendrik's idea
• blackfinix: but that would be the players problem if he/she choses to play more than one char

Shipping Music Files

• the music files should be shipped with the client, just like tiles and images are, but as a separate package
• streaming is considered to consume too much resources like bandwidth, streaming is not required for synchronizing
• plan: 1. Make mute persistent, 2. include the sound files in stendhal-0.xx.zip, 3. include the music files in stendhal-FULL-0.xx.zip

Volunteers

• storyteller and miasma volunteered to do the music
• hendrik volunteered to fix /mute and include the sound files into the normal stendhal-0.xx.zip download, so that the music files can go into stendhal-FULL-0.xx.zip
• plassy volunteered to do the java coding
• it may be a good idea to join #arianne on irc freenode. Please ask there if you have any questions or issues.